The Shelia-5: RETURNED

She's back in my life again, sans body work, sans oil change, (still) sans muffler, sans gas. . .

At 3 in the morning on Monday, I received a phone call from an Officer Hatrick of the CHPD. He informed me that my car had been found at a place called The Boneyard in Mayfield Heights, roughly 10 miles away. Assuming that he meant the car had been found in an actual boneyard, I could not contain my glee at essentially having my car troubles worked out for me. O. Hatrick was quick to explain that The Boneyard is actually an entertainment venue much in the same vein of Dave & Busters. These car thieves really were on a joy ride. He then recited a laundry list of damage to the car. Somewhere near the bottom, he reached the affectations done by the assailant(s).

"They punched the passenger door lock and stripped your steering column," said Hatrick.

"Huh," I yawned, "sounds like a lot of work."

"Not really. Late model American cars are very easy to steal."

"Well go figure."

The intrepid police officer gave me directions to the Mayfield Heights PD and the impound lot where Shelia had been secured. I needed to procure the vehicle's title in order to receive a release form to give to the impound.

The next day, my roommate Ted graciously provided me a ride to the Mayfield Heights PD, where I informed the officer behind the desk that said title lay in the glove box of said stolen car.

She, in turn, informed me that, "Keeping the title in the car is basically writing a blank check for the thing."

I replied, "Maybe, subconsciously, that was the point."

She smiled and phoned the impound lot to see if the title could be located in the vehicle. It was, and following a gracious fax of the document in question, Ted and I made our way to the impound lot. The vehicle release form told a narrative of the status of my car. My eyes collected on verbiage like 'poor' (as in, 'condition') and 'no' (as in, 'muffler').

Before leaving the police office, I asked the officer what would have happened had I neither reported the car stolen nor came back to claim it. She said that the vehicle would be filed as abandoned and after a few months, I would have been sent an invoice for towing/storage fees as well as criminal charges for having abandoned my vehicle. It seems the system is built as a preventative measure against easy disposal of your car. All this time, I had no idea.

Ted and I reached the impound lot and after some failed negotiations, I provided $100 in full to have my car released. It felt like I was bailing Shelia out of the clink. She hadn't been driven in five weeks, and during that span, she had behaved magnificently. Maybe I had trusted her a bit too much, for as soon as I turned my back, she was off gallivanting with a bunch of dirty crooks and owing money all over town. Who is left to pick up the pieces? Me.

Someone from the impound lot showed me how to start the car, as the column had been stripped and the key no longer worked.



"Just finger the little latch on the left hand side," the guy said, "and she starts right up."

"To think, the last thing I had replaced on this thing was the starter," I said. "Do you know of any junk yards between here and Cleveland Heights?"

He did, but they were a bit out of the way, so Ted and I decided to head home directly. After we put some gas in Shelia, she started like a dream. The AM/FM radio was tuned to a rap station. The floor was littered with cigarette butts and empty cans of Colt 45 and Icehouse. Something told me Shelia had had the time of her life.

Later, I called my mom to inform her of the car's condition. She seemed taken aback when I told her the police had no suspects in the case.

-Do you guys have any promising leads on this thing?

--Leads, yeah. We just added three guys last week. They got us working in shifts. Haha! Leads!?

I was a bit disappointed at the lack of vagrancy left behind. Shelia has returned to her spot on the street. I have placed a CLUB (which, ironically, was under the front seat this whole time) across her steering wheel, to act as a deterrent in case the thieves should return and decide to do it all over again.

The albatross is back and she's squawking loudly. Does anyone know of a junk yard around here?